A new report (http://vera.us8.list-manage.com/track/click? u=6542df2be696ba0ea2f17b66a&id=1edebdc1f3&e=0516672a69) from the Vera Institute of Justice says there has been a “significant uptick in states’ actions around policing, including clarifying and improving policies around use-of-force and misconduct cases and improving tracking of police operations around the use of body-worn cameras.” Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia made at least 79 changes to their laws on policing in the last two years, compared with fewer than 20 bills total in the prior three years.

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In a classroom spotted with colorful hijabs, Seattle police Detective Beth Wareing stands in front of whiteboard and asks the group of 25 refugees what the police were like in the countries they emigrated from.

“From what I’ve heard, police are not the people you call for help,” she says.

When “hot” and “cold” cases are handled by the same detectives in a police department, both types of investigations suffer. I wrote recently (https://thecrimereport.org/2017/03/20/getting-away-with-murder-the-nationalcrisis-of-cold-case-homicides/) in The Crime Report that the number of cold-case homicides is rising across the country at the same time as violent crime is increasing —a parallel that is not just a coincidence.

http://77.104.161.236/~necaa089/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/logo3-300x83.png00Userhttp://77.104.161.236/~necaa089/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/logo3-300x83.pngUser2017-04-28 11:10:062017-04-28 11:10:06Why Solving Old Murders Can Help Prevent New Ones

“We should all be dead,” said Jonathan Goyer one bright morning in January as he looked across a room filled with dozens of his coworkers and clients. The Anchor Recovery Community Center, which Goyer helps run, occupies the shell of an office building in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Founded seven years ago, Anchor specializes in “peer-to-peer” counseling for drug addicts.

Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have been making a huge splash in the United States and are causing an unprecedented number of overdoses and deaths throughout suburban America. Recently, a significantly more potent opioid analog has appeared. Carfentanil is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine and has proved deadly for many unsuspecting users.

http://77.104.161.236/~necaa089/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/logo3-300x83.png00Userhttp://77.104.161.236/~necaa089/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/logo3-300x83.pngUser2017-04-21 12:12:252017-04-21 12:12:25Carfentanil: Everything You Should Know About the Deadly Synthetic Heroin

Imagine a world where, as you drive into — or even walk through — New York City, your face is scanned and compared to a list of suspected terrorists or other serious criminals. Would this make you feel safe? Now, imagine that the technology is error-prone, and may misidentify innocent people as suspects. What about now?

Prosecutions for drug, immigration and property offenses – the three most common categories of crime charged by the federal government – all have declined over the past five years. The Justice Department filed drug charges against 24,638 defendants in 2016, down 23% from 2011. It filed immigration charges against 20,762 defendants, down 26%. And it charged 10,712 people with property offenses such as fraud and embezzlement, a 39% decline.

On any given day in the United States there are about 450,000 people in jail who have not been convicted of anything. According to the Pretrial Justice Institute (http://www.pretrial.org/) , they cost taxpayers about $38 million a day. Those 450,000 people have been charged with a crime, and all—except for a small percentage facing life in prison—have a right to be free. These men and women sit in jail because they do not have the money to get out, pending trial.